


From Now On

by coolbyrne



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 14:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18718933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbyrne/pseuds/coolbyrne
Summary: Post "Hail and Farewell". Semi-established Jack and Gibbs. A bit of serious, a bit of fluff.





	From Now On

**Author's Note:**

> The bit about the coffee was inspired by jenni3penny's "At the Broken Places". Go. Read!

“I had a talk with McGee.”

She murmured a small noise of discontent. Pushing back into his body and burrowing herself deeper into his arms, she mumbled into the pillow. “Not exactly the post-coital after-morning sex conversation I imagined, but okay.”

He pressed into her push and allowed the sass, though his retort let her know what he thought about it. With his lips pressed against her neck, he drawled, “And what kinda _post-coital_ after-morning sex conversation did you imagine?” He felt her giggle under his mouth.

“If I get my phone, can I record you saying ‘post-coital’?” When she got a light pinch on her hip in reply, she laughed again. “I imagined some kind of conversation that involved you talking about bringing me breakfast in bed. Something not cooked on an open flame.” Her exaggerated sigh was long and low. “Ah well. Good thing the sex is _amazing_.” She said the last word just as dramatically as she had sighed. When she felt his retaliatory roll over at her continued sass, she laced her fingers through his and held tight. “Leave now and I will drop a kiss on you in the middle of the bullpen so sinful, you’ll burst into flames.”

“Thought you wanted me to stay?” Her growl brought out his own chuckle.

Satisfied he wasn’t going anywhere, she asked, “What did you talk to Tim about?”

He was halfway into dropping the subject; their morning banter seemed to pave their conversation in a different direction, but he heard the sincerity in her question and knew he’d never be able to brush her aside. Talking was never his strong suit- he’d be the first to admit it- but there was a comfort having her in his bed that loosened his tongue in a less carnal way than he’d been using it that morning. He allowed himself the pleasurable memory before growing serious.

“He, uh, tracked me down. At the funeral. Ellen’s funeral.” He felt her fingers squeeze his but she didn’t comment. “I figured that was somethin’ to do with you.”

Her shoulder shrugged slightly against him. “We had a talk,” she admitted. “But he’s much more perceptive than maybe even you give him credit for.” He hummed his concession. “I know this is going to sound like a crazy idea, but, do you want to talk about it?”

He brushed a low growl against her neck at her sarcasm. “No.” Hearing the abruptness in his own reply, he said, “Not here.” 

She knew ‘here' meant the bed, which had become a kind of haven for him. For them both. In the all-too brief time they had been together, it became an unspoken rule: no shop talk beyond the casual, no discussions of cases or people involved in them. It didn't surprise her that he would find a way to fit Ellen Wallace under that umbrella, to make her connection to the case supercede her connection to him. As much as she wanted to know, as curious as she was in the interrogation room, she had her own pain to leave at the foot of the bed and he had let her. She could only let him do the same. Still, she couldn't stop herself from asking one thing.

“Did you keep the tape?”

She pinpointed the moment his confusion turned to understanding by the way his angles went rigid and her back became cold as no amount of hand holding could stop him from rolling away. 

“McGee’s perceptive _and_ he’s got a big mouth.”

Knowing the circumstances surrounding the tape, knowing the emotional mire it put him in, she had no problem allowing him to defend himself, but she wouldn’t allow it to manifest itself through misguided anger. Turning over, she raised herself up on one elbow, eyes shining with blazed energy.

“You don’t think that information was in the file? You don’t think I believed you when you said you hadn’t spoken to her? You don’t think I’m smart enough to figure it out on my own?” Each question was punctuated by a jab to his chest. “Give me some credit, will you?”

Her words made him flinch more than her minor assault. She was right and he knew it- her perceptiveness was one of the things that attracted him to her, her ability to parse through the bullshit and get right to the heart of the matter. It made her a damned good forensic psychologist. He wasn't so sure how much he liked it when her clinical eye was turned in his direction, though.

In a softer, lower voice she asked, “You don’t think I know you?”

The question would have made his defenses go up faster if it had been asked by anyone else but her. But there was an almost hopeful quality to it, a longing to be right, an acknowledgment that she had been granted access behind his walls.

He grabbed her finger and kissed it, an action that contrasted his curt, “Then why’d ya ask?”

She smiled at all his contradictions. His tousled hair and boyish petulance belied the man he was, and not for the first time did she understand how women fell for him. She also wasn't surprised how many left him, and said so in a roundabout way. 

“Because you keep all these things in perfectly neat little packages, stacked away up here.” She gently pulled her hand away and touched his forehead. “And here.” She touched his chest above his heart. “And you only bring them out under duress.” 

His hand covered hers as his eyes bored into the ceiling.

“There's nothing wrong with regret, Gibbs.” She nuzzled his jaw to lighten the question that followed. “You don't think I don't have a few of my own?” He turned into her affection and hummed. “That's just life.”

He wasn't going to change overnight- hell, he wasn't likely to change at all, but there was so much of him that wanted to, for her. He made the first step in an uncomfortably new shoe.

“I shoulda told you. About her.”

She hid her surprise at his candid admission, recognizing it for the newness it was. Creating a soft landing for it, she said, “In the context of the case, yes. In terms of you and me, I don't expect or even need you to tell me everything. I hope there will come a time when you want to. But it's okay if you don't, as long as you don't keep hiding it from yourself.”

While he appreciated the escape clause, he wasn't having it. “Nah. I gotta do better. I've wasted too much good.”

The way he said it made her suspect there was more to the expression, but she knew it would be for another day. 

“Okay,” she said, dropping her lips lightly on his. “But if it makes you feel better, just think- I haven't told you about all the men I've slept with.”

She turned over and waited for the fallout she knew would be coming. She could almost see the scowl bringing his brows to meet, and she pressed her lips together to stop her laughter from slipping out. He rolled into her, possessive and dangerous, gripping her hip and pulling her back into him.

“What did you say?”

The battle to fight the laughter was lost. “I forgot,” she grinned. “Immaculate Conception. You're the first.”

“Don't be a wiseass,” he warned, gently biting her shoulder, but his edges soon softened as they often did when she was involved. Bites became hot open-mouth kisses down her shoulder blade, but no less of a brand along her skin. They traced over literal marks left by less loving men, and while he could never make them go away, he'd do his damndest to outnumber them.

“You're the first in a lot of ways,” she whispered.

His mouth's reconnaissance of his new favourite terrain was called back with this sitrep. They hovered over skin that smelled of home, and the second step wasn't nearly as hard as the first.

“You, too.” Before she could reply, he dropped a chaste kiss behind her ear and rolled out of bed.

“Hey!” she protested. “I was just starting to enjoy that.”

His smirk was reflexive and cocky. “Just startin’?”

“Now who's the wiseass?” 

She rolled over to see what he was doing, oblivious to the sheet being pulled down from the motion, promising his mouth future scouting missions. Or maybe she was more than a little aware, if her own smirk was anything to go by. The feline stretch only confirmed his suspicions. 

“I don't know how you sleep in this bed,” she complained.

“I don't sleep in it when you're not here.”

Though his tone was one of casual nonchalance, she was warmed by the unexpected reveal. Her contentment in the moment was such that she didn't realize he was getting dressed until the USMC sweater was pulled over his head. 

“That's my favourite sweater. I was going to wear that when I got up.”

“That's too bad.” 

His eyes openly soaked her up and an eyebrow cocked at a private thought that apparently wasn't so private.

“Pig,” she said, tossing his pillow at him in playful retaliation. “Wait.” She frowned at his appearance. “You're going somewhere.”

“Bringin’ ya breakfast. Your ‘post-coital’ talk, remember?” He basked in her laughter. “An’ if it's not over an open flame, then it means that hole-in-the-wall bakery on 5th you keep talkin’ about.” Her groan had him rethinking the sense behind getting out of bed.

Practically purring, she closed her eyes and hummed her approval. “Yes. Give me the sugar. All the sugar.” Cracking one open at his laugh, she said, “And that goes for my coffee, which has been getting suspiciously less sweeter when you buy it.” She wagged a finger at him. “That innocent face there? Doesn't work with me.” They shared a collective look that reminded her of how many times ‘that innocent face’ did work, and what exactly it could get her to do. “Outside of this room,” she corrected, much to his amusement. Attempting to bring the ball back into her own court, she sternly accused, “You've been incrementally cheating me out of half a teaspoon every time.”

“Which still leaves ya with three-quarters of a cup.” His tone said all that needed to be said about her coffee choices.

“Ha! So you _do_ admit it.”

He shrugged the obvious. “Never not gonna be honest with ya, Jack.”

She murmured her approval, knowing it to be true. For good or bad, she couldn't imagine knowing a more honest man. Still, she glowered. “Mess with my coffee and suffer the consequences, Gunny.”

He was tempted to test her, because he suspected he might actually enjoy the punishment. Filing the thought away for later, he knew the best defense was a good offense. “You want me to get you that ‘buttery croissant with sea salt chocolate drizzle’ or not?”

Her memory bank recalled the single time she had identified the baked good. At work. To Ellie. Six months ago. They had bonded over the decadence. The fact that he heard, let alone remembered, brought an unexpectedly shy smile to her face. “Wow.” It was too late to stop the proud grin that had already spread across his face, but she took a shot at nipping his smugness in the bud. “Remind me to get a recording of that right after ‘post-coital’.”

Through narrowed eyes, he asked, “Is this what I gotta look forward to from now on?”

That he would use the term ‘from now on’, in a relationship that had yet to define its parameters, sent a second wave of warmth to her face, and this time, his grin wasn’t _at_ her, but _for_ her. As a man who used so few of them, he knew the importance of words, and while there might have been 3 other words that mattered more for others, he couldn’t think of anything that settled his soul more than ‘from now on’. With her. He was saved from further uncharacteristic introspection when she pulled the sheet down to her waist and shrugged with a self-assurance that sent a different kind of warmth through him, to a place well south of his face. 

“Yes,” she lightly replied, in the off-hand way he had enjoyed from the start. “But that’s the only kind of look you’ll be getting if you bring me back the wrong coffee.”

Though his eyebrows rose at the warning, he gave her the ground with a tilt of his head. But not before his eyes openly took what she was threatening to take away. “Yes, Ma’am,” he drawled, before yanking the sheet away as he walked out the bedroom door.

“Hey!” she shouted after him and laughed. “Bastard!” Flopping back onto the bed, she smiled at the ceiling. She suspected she’d be drinking coffee straight by the end of the year. 

-end


End file.
